Why We Fight
by Ffordesoon
Summary: Shego's diary entry after Stop Team Go. Hopefully better than it sounds. WARNING: Rating is T, but there are a few M-level curse words in here. I feel they are appropriate, but you have nonetheless been warned.


Dear Diary,

So today was weird.

(The last three days, really, but it all runs together in my head.)

I think I'm in love. With a girl. Who I fight and try to kill. For money. And Iceland. I realized this because I was shot with a ray from a helmet that turned me into a giggly little schoolmarm who had cute names for her hot chocolate and struggled desperately (_so_ desperately) not to dot every "i" with a damn _heart_.

Diary, dare I ask at what point my life began to resemble a terrible game of Mad Libs?

Considering I just bought you three (four?) days ago, I doubt you'll tell me the answer. Goddamnit.

You know, I'm looking back through your pages and seeing these fucking girly curlicues and heart-dotted i's and all I can think is how much I wish I was still the goody-goody fluffy-bunny airhead who wrote that crap.

Because then I could be near _her_.

How sad is that, Diary? We've fought each other a thousand frickin' times, once damn near to the death, and she finally beats me by smiling at me. Pretty sure there's some irony in there somewhere.

It's a sick joke, man.

(Wait, are you a man now? Apparently so. Hm.)

It's a sick friggin' joke. I try and I try and I try to kill her and maim her and punch her in the face for _years_, and then we go to a movie and take some pictures and suddenly I wanna _kiss_ her? It makes no sense.

No sense at all.

I know, I know - "Love doesn't have to make sense." Blech, spare me that greeting-card horseshit. Of course love has to make sense, otherwise...

Otherwise she'd be with me. Me, not her fucking stupid sidekick who loses his pants all the time and carries a fucking rat in his pocket and gets C's on everything – oh yeah, I saw that asshole's report card! - and probably couldn't satisfy a virgin and, and...

Well, I guess that doesn't make much sense either.

Great, now she's made me hope. We know what hoping gets us, don't we, _Kaitlyn_? Ask for a treehouse for Christmas and you get a comet that wrecks it and kills your fucking parents. Ask Derek Wong out on a date and you get Carried worse than Carrie. Oh yes, Diary, I know what hope does to you. You take off your armor and you show yourself in all your weakness and get punched in the throat for it. No thank you. Give me resentment any fucking day, man.

Whoa, I was just reading that back to myself, and I was thinking about if someone else read that, and they'd say that that "explains" me. And I'm not sure they would be wrong.

Fuck me, am I that boring? That cliche? "Ooh, I had a bad life, so I decided I'd _be_ bad, nah-nah-nah!" Damn, is that _me_?

No. No, it's not. I'm...

Shit.

No, I'm _not_ crying, Diary. Shut up. Fucking asshole. You fucking did this to me, you stupid thing! I don't even know why I'm telling you this! I just... I'd _started_ it, you, whatever, and...

I'm gonna throw you in the incinerator, just you fucking wait. I'm gonna

...

This is the letter I'm never going to send her:

Kim,

You're beautiful and I'm in love with you and

You're a big girl now – NO!

After this whole... _thing_, I guess you're probably wondering why we can't just be friends or something stupid like that, why we have to keep fighting. You wanna know the truth?

_I don't know._

Stupid, huh? You probably thought there was gonna be a real answer there, didn't you? There's not one. I'm just a dumb broad who wants what she can't have, and you're the girl who keeps me from having it. Because you're amazing, and I'm not. I'm an idiot. I can't just _tell_ you what I want. I can't even admit that I want it. I'm stuck in a holding pattern because I'm pathetic. I'm not honest with myself and I'm pathetic.

And I _know_ that! I've figured it out, but I'll never tell you that, because I like seeing you. I can force myself to raise a hand against you because it's the closest I'll ever get to holding you and touching you. Isn't that sick? Isn't that just gross and sick? The green freak wants to punch you because it's _something_. It's _contact_. I know, it's gross. I know that, and I still do it, but I can't _not_ do it, because that would mean not seeing _you_.

I need you to save me from myself. I need you to save me by hurting me. I need you to fight me so I can see you. Because there's just no other way, unless...

No, I can't do that. I can't say that. Because saying it means I'll never see you and I'll come apart at the seams. I'll just... I don't know _what_ would happen.

So we'll always fight. We'll fight because it's our job and we're enemies and a million other reasons, but mostly we'll fight because we don't know how to do anything else.

Well, _I_ don't know how to do anything else. Maybe you do.

I wish you would.

It was fun being your friend.

--S

And even _that_ doesn't admit to anything, does it? If she ever found this...

I'm going to burn this tomorrow. I have to sleep now. Wish I had my spare clothes.

* * *

**A/N:** Apply the usual disclaimer to this thing, willya? I'm too lazy to type it up there, and it wouldn't fit the diary format anyway.

Yes, I'm back. After a long sojourn across Tibet to find myself? Yeah, sure, let's go with that. Hell, let's say I went to Nanda Parbat and made myself a better Batman. :P

(5 points on the ethereal scoreboard to anyone who gets that reference. Not that it's that friggin' hard.)

Before I say anything about this story, I should say that it's dedicated to the wonderful Apoptosis. She took down all of her stories from ffnet, and I haven't talked with her in a very long time, but I still consider her my friend. To her, I say: when I tell you I'll write you a story, I mean it. Even if it takes me a few years to get around to it. ;)

About this story, then:

This piece was posted at the KP Slash Haven in a virtually identical state a couple of months ago, where it quickly came and went. I wasn't particularly surprised by that, I must say. It's not a Great Work Of Literature, and the style is deliberately meandering and obtuse. If this were a film, it would be a cult hit at best.

Why did I write it, then? Several reasons. They are selfish, subjective, and dull to everyone but me, but I'll bore you with them anyway:

First and most importantly, sweetPixiesmile started doing these speedwrite fic things inspired by songs a while back, and they are pretty much uniformly excellent. One of them in particular really struck a chord with me. I believe it was called "Heroes," based on the David Bowie song. The song is one I love and am totally obsessed with, so I clicked on the story expecting to be wowed or utterly disappointed. Thankfully, I was wowed. I believe the story was a simple first-person character study from Kim's point of view, in which a post-"Stop Team Go" Kim silently encouraged Shego to be a hero with her. There was no real plot to speak of, but it was nonetheless compelling. My internet connection isn't functioning properly at the time of this writing, so I can't check to see if I'm right, but that's how I remember it. There was also another story, also one I really dug, that functioned as a sort of companion piece to "Heroes." I can't remember what that one was called, but you'll be well-served to read all of them anyway, so I won't bother correcting myself. In any case, I read those two fics and was immediately consumed with jealousy, so I decided to try writing one of my own stories in that vein. This is clearly a meager attempt at aping his style, though I am still damnably jealous.

(If you're wondering why I didn't dedicate the story to sPs, it's because Apop pretty much cornered the market on this style of Kigo before sPs ever did. Also, it's a nice surprise for her, assuming she ever sees it.)

Secondly, I wanted to try a new style of writing. I was getting sick of only being able to turn out jokefics and dialogue snippets, but I was and am still busy refining the oft-discussed "Price Of The Heart" and "Child Development" into The Best Fics EVARtm, so I couldn't post them yet. Furthermore, I was getting sick of writing in _those_ styles as well. Not that any of the aforementioned styles aren't fun to use, but I'm a guy who gets pissed off if he's forced to do one thing for too long without a break.

Thirdly, I wanted to write something a bit more melancholy than my usual fare. Something open-ended and unresolved, sans a good bit of the cheek I normally display. I also didn't want to write something super-detailed, plot-heavy, or otherwise difficult to construct. Simplicity was my aim, and I think I achieved that, if nothing else.

Finally, I wanted to remind you all that I still exist. I hope I have achieved this as well. :)

Not everyone will like this piece, and that's probably for the best. Some, my beta included, will be put off by the characterization of Shego here. To that, I can only say: she talked, I wrote.

Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow. Oh, and read and review, etc. etc.


End file.
